Myanmar police raise riot shields to fend off a hail of plastic bottles from angry demonstrators -- but the clash is just an exercise -- as the force seeks to shed its junta-era image with the help of European trainers.

The European Union on Thursday showcased the results of its first round of training with the Myanmar Police Force, which aims to prioritize human rights in operations and modernize techniques.

Iran and Britain officially resumed Thursday diplomatic relations severed by London after students stormed its Tehran embassy in 2011, a senior Iranian official said.

"From today relations between Iran and Britain are resumed at the non-resident charges d'affaires level," Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi told ISNA, adding that the countries' flags were raised atop their embassies in Tehran and London.

Lithuanian prosecutors said Thursday they have opened an investigation into claims that a Saudi terror suspect was held in an alleged secret CIA jail in the Baltic state.

The probe concerns the "possible illegal transportation of persons across the state border", Vilnius prosecutors said in a statement.

Pakistan said Thursday that 23 of its paramilitary soldiers who were killed by insurgents had been executed on Afghan soil, and delivered a formal protest to the Kabul government.

A faction of the Pakistani Taliban from Mohmand near the Afghan border said last Sunday it had killed the soldiers, who were kidnapped in the area in June 2010.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Thursday to accept EU help in his talks with the opposition and condemned the latest violence.

Merkel spoke by phone with Yanukovych as fierce clashes in Kiev claimed at least 27 lives, just as EU envoys were holding crisis talks with the embattled president.

The European Union will look at a possible ban on the sale of anti-riot equipment and arms to Ukraine as well as other sanctions at talks in Brussels on Thursday.

A draft statement seen by Agence France Presse that is to be finalized by the bloc's 28 foreign ministers at emergency talks scheduled for 1400 GMT says that the EU "is gravely concerned about the deteriorating situation in Ukraine."

Britain hauled in the Ukrainian ambassador to London on Thursday for the second time in two days over the violence in Kiev that has claimed at least another 27 lives.

Following renewed deadly clashes earlier Thursday, Europe Minister David Lidington summoned Volodymyr Khandogiy to the Foreign Office over what it called the "shocking violence in Ukraine".

Germany has arrested three suspected former SS guards of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz in a series of home raids across three states, prosecutors said Thursday.

Israel's Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center praised the police action and said prosecutions should be expedited "to maximize justice while still possible".

Sri Lanka's main opposition accused the government Thursday of awarding contracts to a World Bank-blacklisted Chinese company and said it would not honor the deals if it regains power.

The United National Party (UNP) said the government had recently awarded a contract to the state-owned China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC) for a new port city in the capital Colombo despite the World Bank move.

An attack by scores of Boko Haram Islamists in the northeast Nigeria town of Bama has killed 60 people and caused massive destruction to public buildings, police told AFP Thursday.

Residents said gunmen stormed the town at roughly 4:00 am (0300 GMT) on Wednesday, armed with heavy weapons and tossed explosives into various buildings, forcing residents to flee into the surrounding bush.